Community Banking ‘Act’ To Donate Impact Dollars

Banking Not for Profit, Community Sector Banking, has launched a service which allows customers to give to a range of worthy causes via their every-day banking.

The new division of Community Sector Banking – a collaboration between Community 21 and Bendigo Bank- called act. – has been described as a whole new way of banking  using crowd-sourcing to raise money for social enterprise projects across a wide range of sectors.

“act. gives you the opportunity to earn and donate banking profits to a range of inspiring, community-focused projects simply by doing something you already do everyday,” the head of Marketing, Communications and act. at Community Sector Banking, Amanda Watt, said.

“Under the initiative, act. will allocate “impact dollars” – real dollars taken from the profit it earns – to each customer to donate to a project of their choice.

“Customers will choose where their donations go, how much and how often.

“An online and telephone banking service, act. offers seven products including transaction accounts, savings accounts, credit cards, personal loans and home loans, all issued by Bendigo Bank. The accounts generate the standard interest applied to other banking products.

“The amount of impact dollars a customer generates depends on their banking habits.For example, a customer who holds a $250,000 mortgage with act. could generate approximately $31 a month to reinvest in the social project of their choice.

“act. believes in profit for purpose and act. is a world-first – a new way of banking where who you bank with does matter.

“act. tranforms banking from an everyday passive undertaking to a positive force for change. Our customers can earn and donate banking profits to inspiring, community-focused projects simply by doing something you already do everyday.

“By signing up for banking products with act. our customers or act.ivists, as they will be known, can make a real difference to a social cause simply with the click of a button.”

The social projects cover areas such as animal welfare, support for people with illness and disabilities, the environment and community food programs. Each project will be live for a maximum of 60 days and, similar to a crowd-source model, if it doesn’t raise its funding target in the allotted time, the project will not be funded.

The  Not for Profits behind Community Sector Banking – which includes organisations like ACOSS, Jobs Australia, Oxfam Australia, Ozchild, Scope and Able Australia .

“People in banking find it hard to believe we do what we do. We are unusual and we are happy to be that way,” CEO and Managing Director of Community Sector Banking, Greg Peel said.

“We are focused on social change, and we are excited about act. playing an even greater role in enabling that change”

The act. website – www.letsact.com.au –  has launched with ten social enterprise projects – theyinclude Sands (National), Road Trauma Support Services (Victoria), SecondBite (National), Think Pink (National), Plan Australia (National), CareFlight (Queensland), MS Society of South Australia (South Australia), Lort Smith (Victoria), Sailors with Disabilities (New South Wales) and SCARF Inc. (Wollongong, New South Wales).

“Six to eight new projects will go live on the www.letsact.com.au website each month,” Peel said.